The Fort Peck Tribes Health Promotion Disease Prevention Program and Roosevelt County Health Department have partnered to launch an evidence-based home-visiting program this coming summer with the Parents as Teachers program.They are two of the partners of the Best Beginnings Community Council bringing together a group of individuals interested and committed to the development of a comprehensive, coordinated early childhood system for children from prenatal to the age of five and their families. One of the top priorities for the group is providing resources for effective parenting.Parents as Teachers provides family support including resource and referral, parental education and parent support groups. The Best Beginnings Community Council’s home visitor group agreed on PAT as the evidence- based model that might best meet the varying needs in Roose-velt County. The group believes it is the best model because it provides excellent support and training, because parenting skills and child development are taught, and because different cultural values and experiences can be easily incorporated.“The council is pleased to support the efforts of HPDP and the Health Department to provide this life-changing program,” Best Beginnings chair Keith Erickson said. “We feel that working with parents when their children are born or even before then will be most beneficial.”For more information on Parents as Teachers or Best Beginnings, contact Donelle Buckles, Best Beginnings coordinator for the Fort Peck Tribes Health Promotion Disease Prevention Program, at 768-3052 or Michelle Barsness, Best Beginnings Coordinator for the Roosevelt County Public Health Department, at 653-6269.